.. I would go back further , to the Nixon years . In particular , the treasonous acts of the ” Watergate babies ” in Congress in 1974 . At last , by now , the last of the scum and vermin from those days is just about gone from Capitol Hill . It is long since past time for that ….

.. I was born just under a year later . Believe it or not , I never asked my parents or my older family members about what their feelings were and their reactions were to the assasination . When I was old enough to understand the history of the times , it was 1973 or 1974 , I was around 9 or 10 years old , and it was around the time of Watergate (and President Nixon ‘ s resignation) .

.. I realized how raw the feelings were with people , just 10 years after the event .They were raw , even then . Even with the history that I studied [AP US History , for example] , I did not think that it was in good taste to ask about the subject . Unless I knew the person well , and I did so in private .

.. I began to realize how I might have felt , because I was in my sophomore year of high school [March 1981] when my personal and political hero , President Ronald Reagan was shot in an attempted assasination in Washington , D.C. . I was upset as hell , and very worried about the President ‘ s condition , until I knew that he was out of surgery and was in satisfactory (or better condition) . Thank God he was o.k. , but I received a reminder of how precious life is , and how precious it is for those we have in our lives …